


Détente

by irrelevant



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Chicken Pox, Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrelevant/pseuds/irrelevant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Head to toe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Détente

He opens the door and immediately closes it again. He counts off the successive thunks of sharpened steel into wood, one, two, three, four...

And he waits, because there's one more knife in the room that he knows of. Gives the door a tiny push--

 _Thunk_.

He gives it ten more seconds in case of knives he doesn't know of, then he says, "I'm coming in," and pushes the door back open.

"Go away," says the huddle of sheets on the bed. He thinks it's moving, but it's hard to tell. The blinds are closed and the room is dark with approaching dusk.

"I will in a minute," he says, and walks in, pushing the door closed after him with his heel. He sets the tray down on the desk and yellow cat eyes blink up at him from a pile of notebooks. "There's some for you, too," he says, and goes to open the blinds.

Damian's scowling, white-speckled face is sticking out of the sheets when he turns around. "Why did Pennyworth send you?"

"Dick's out and Alfred is making dinner," Tim says. "I don't want to be here any more than you want me, but right now, I'm what you've got." He holds up the bottle of calamine lotion, and he doesn't smile when Damian's scowl deepens, but it's close. "Want to stop itching or not?"

Damian hisses something in Arabic that Tim doesn't catch. It's probably safe to say it's profane. "Turn around," Tim says, and gets a look sharper than the kid's knives. He rolls his eyes. "Can you stand up?"

Damian's upper lip curls. "Of course I can, you moron."

"Then go stand in front of the mirror. That way, you can watch me do it."

Damian chews on his lip for a moment, then he crawls out of bed and follows Tim's suggestion. Tim's only a little surprised. Damian has been slightly more amenable to suggestion since the Tower.

He knows better than to offer his help, so he waits until Damian stops moving before he approaches. The kid's eyes meet his in the mirror. He gets a brusque nod, and he cracks the bottle open and starts on the kid's shoulders.

Head to toe, Damian is covered in one of the worst cases of chicken pox Tim's ever seen. He's wearing a pair of briefs and nothing else, and they look startlingly colorless against red dots and his skin.

"Was it going around at school?" Tim hears himself ask, the same way he'd have asked any other kid, and then he kicks himself mentally for forgetting that Damian is not any other kid. To say the least.

To his surprise, Damian mutters something. "What?" Tim says.

"No," Damian snaps. His chin jerks up and he glares at Tim in the mirror. "I know someone. He also has this -- this _disease_. I contracted it. That is all."

Tim feels his eyebrows rise, but he doesn't ask the obvious question. He says, "Done." Then, because of the knives, he adds, "Do you need me to do the rest of your... backside?"

Damian whirls like a snake striking, calamine-covered pox standing whitely out against his red cheeks. "Get out," he spits, and stalks over to the desk.

With reluctant amusement, Tim watches him sniff warily at the tray. The cat's face in is one of the bowls. "What is this?" Damian demands.

"Chicken soup." Tim snaps the bottle closed, sets it on the nearest shelf and starts walking.

"Drake," Damian says just as his hand touches the door. Tim turns just enough to see him. "Thank you," Damian says extremely grudgingly.

Tim waits, curious to see if that's all. Apparently, it is. Damian adds, "Now you can get out," and picks up the bowl the cat's face isn't in.

Tim closes the door on the combined sounds of lapping and slurping, and laughs silently all the way to his room.


End file.
